How many ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN POLISH in Poland?

are there any orthodox poles here? or people who were once orthodox? if so whats it like to be orthodox in a catholic country ?

I think Ironside is.

whats it like to be orthodox in a catholic country ?

it's normal, we all are christians.

Are you orthodox ??

Not true. Poland is not 100 % Christian, or even close to this number.

Olaf:
i mean we all christian to answer how orthodox ppl live with catholic ?
i hope u got me

Orthodox Christianity has more in common with Catholicism than Protestantism.

That is true.

Orthodox christianity is more relevant to Russia than it is to Poland. Also true.

Of course.

the name of the thread was confusing for me. Poles are catholics. The end.

I just agreed with more similarities between Catholicism and Orthodoxy compared to Protestantism.

As far as I know, Catholics and Orthodox recognize each other as Christian Churches, so if someone wants to convert it is a light ceremony compared to the one when Protestant wants to become Orthodox, he or she has to be christianized like a newborn. Like he is not Christian. That is not the case with Catholics. They are by Orthodoxy seen as Christians. I am not sure, but I think that is not the case in debate Catholic vs Protestant. Clarification and corrections of my possibly erroneous ideas would be nice :)

Protestantism deviated from original Christianity more than the rest.
Closest to the roots is Orthodoxy (outdated heavily), then Catholicism (on the same path like Orthodoxy) and the youngest firms are new branches of Protestantism. As modernized versions, they seem to be more influential.

That is how one half informed and not curious about the topic atheist thinks about this ;)

No, not all Poles are Catholics. I'm a Lutheran. When I think of orthodox christianity in Poland I think of forced russification, language and religion (under tsar) Maybe not fair but that's my connotation.

There are quite a few orthodox Poles as one Polka recently told me.They are mostly located in eastern Poland.They are not heretics like in Ukraine.

my family are polish and we are orthodox NOT all polish people are catholic!
there are up to 1 million polish orthodox in Poland today ! many polish orthodox were forced to become catholic by the polish government before ww2

Very reliable source of information, coming from one (imaginary?) Polka. :-)

Just in case people got wrong ideas about Orthodoxy in Poland from other Polkas, here is something to chew upon:

Aside from some number of the Orthodox Church faithfuls, there are about 50,000 faithfuls belonging to Greek Catholic Church, and specifically to Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a.k.a. United Church (going also by five other names) in Poland.

[Look it up on internet about so-called Brześć Union, about centuries of rivalry between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics in various parts of Eastern Poland, about different attitudes of Soviets towards both churches and about status quo.]

In short, 6%-8% of total population of Ukraine claim to belong to UGCC. There are total 6-10 millions of UGCC faithfuls worldwide, making it the second most populous catholic church, after the RCC. Main distribution: Ukraine, Poland, and any countries where Ukrainian emigrants have gone - USA, Canada, Australia, etc.

In Poland, there are two UGCC metropolia: Przemyśl-Warsaw (32,000, 85 parishes) and Wrocław-Gdańsk (21,000, 57 parishes).
Rusyns a.k.a. Rusnaks, a.k.a. £emkos mostly adhere to UGCC or to Ruthenian Catholic Church. Eastern Carpathians (Beskid, Bieszczady) are still full of chapels, churches, cemeteries, and crosses - witnessing to their culture. Due to forceful resettlement of £emkos in 1946 a significant percentage of Ukrainians/£emkos currently live in Northern Poland (Pomerania and Masuria) - away from their roots.

And last but not least: Armenian Catholic Church. Great history, but not many of them left now. They are under the direct control of Vatican, more or less. In 2009 all small Armenian Catholic parishes have been liquidated and the three so-called territorial parishes have been created instead:

- South parish, with seat in Gliwice, covering the southern belt of Poland
- Central parish, with seat in Warsaw
- Northern parish with seat in Gdańsk

Just for comparison with UGCC, Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church (independent of Russian hierarchy) has over 500 thousand faithful (including diaspora - about 600 thousand) - so about 10 times as many as UGCC, residing mainly in the area of ​​the former province of Białystok, and especially in the districts: Białystok, Bielsko, Hajnówka, Siemiatycze and Sokółka. In 2010, PAOC had 423 temples. The church is a member of the World Council of Churches and the Polish Ecumenical Council.

In southern Poland, 170 kilometres from Krakow, Orthodox religion still plays a role and has nothing to do with tsar.

my love for Poles goes without any reserve. They could be Catholic, Orthodox or even Pagan, still, they are best people in the world together with us Serbians.

go visit the towns and villages in eastern Poland, bordering Ukraine and Belarus, like my mother's town, and you'll see real orthodox cultures, churches, etc. They are very beautiful!

Even in large cities like Białystok, there is a big belarussian orthodox community.

But not Muslim?

if i can found love for the islamized Serbs, why wouldn`t i found understanding for Polish Muslims. But, my opinion about Islam among Slavs is something else. Stance of Islam is to absolutely negate ethnicity. So, my opinion is negative about Islam

NO.

but how about jewish? :))

same. Jewish religion also negate original ethnicity

Where I live, in eastern Poland, Orthodox and Roman Catholics live peacefully side by side. They inter-marry with very few problems; they have friends who attend churches of the other denomination without any antagonism for the most part; they work together without asking or caring which type of catholicism their colleague belongs to.

Having said that, there are companies which tend to employ only, or mostly, RC or Orthodox, but this is largely the result of the culture of filling job positions by 'connections': family, Church, or friends.

There are very, very few militant bigots on either side of what I hesitate to call 'the divide', as the divide doesn't really exist.

almax states a fact. I work with, and live with, Orthodox Poles who are 100% part of Polish society. Their denomination is a cultural element in their lives, and not a political one.


Time for a well-deserved holiday (from whatever it is you do) in eastern Poland.


It's not a catholic or Catholic country. It's a secular democracy, not a theocracy.


I thought you were an American. Whatever.

over 90% are catholic.. so its catholic to reality

Images of Greek Catholic Churches, Bieszczady

pbase.com/xyrz/greek_catholic_churches

If you knew what you were talking about, you'd know that Eastern Orthodoxy is more 'Catholic' than Roman Catholicism, and that the RC's are in fact a breakaway Church or schism.

true say.

It is not fair because none of us here chose the religion (or rare ones). It is almost hereditary thing.

Christianization was forced as well to pagans. It is actually always forced.
Catholicism was not a matter for referendum in Poland, like Orthodoxy was not democratically chosen by Russians.


Eastern Catholic and Western Catholic churches. Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. They sort of protected the term as their brand.

Catholicism:

The word catholic (derived via Late Latin catholicus, from the Greek adjective (katholikos), meaning "universal"[1][2]) comes from the Greek phrase (kath'holou), meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"

It was first used to describe the Christian Church in the early 2nd century to emphasize its universal scope. In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. In non-ecclesiastical use, it derives its English meaning directly from its root, and is currently used to mean

universal or of general interest;
liberal, having broad interests, or wide sympathies[6]; or
inclusive, inviting and containing strong evangelism.
The term has been incorporated into the name of the largest Christian communion, the Roman Catholic Church, which consists of 23 churches sui iuris, in full communion with the Bishop of Rome. The largest of these, the Latin Rite, consists of nearly 95% of the population of the Roman Catholic Church; the remaining 5% consist of the 22 Eastern Catholic Churches.

Not anymore.

PS. Thankfully the tsar and his relatives are dead. Unfortunately the new Russian "tsars" turned out to be even more brutal.
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Well, I'm not talking about the current situation but the past. For example, the relatives of the Slavs who are now Muslims in Bosnia "surrendered" (get it :) at one point to the Ottomon oppressors and converted to Islam. Likewise, there were Poles who at one point surrendered their souls to the Russian occupiers and converted to orthodox Christianity. Offspring or remnants of the occupation.

PS. Your PM box is full.

probably, there were the cases such as you described. But, let`s not generalize

i would remind you that medieval Poland/Commonwealth was/were full of Orthodox Serbs from Balkan who served under the Polish Kings. Those Serbians (Racowie)- as best cavalry force in known world were desperately needed to Poland. Those Serbs were first Polish winged cavalry and they created Polish hussars. They were loved by Polish nobility and by Polish people. Those Serbs didn`t ask are Poles Catholics or Orthodox but they were there over the Slavic/Sarmatian connection. Anyway, those Serbs practiced Orthodoxy and wherever they were stationed in Poland they influenced region to have warm feelings on Orthodoxy (even some Orthodox Churches were built because of them). Those Serbs didn`t come to Poland to spread Orthodoxy (at that time they were actually even confronted to Russians- for example, in Orsha battle Orthodox Serbs were first Polish line) but they simple were Orthodox and as i said practiced Orthodoxy.

So, let`s not generalize and let`s not say that all Poles came in contact with Orthodoxy by force. Some were in contact with Orthodox Serbs who were pride of Poland and Polish nobility. Being under the influence of those Serbs, Poles didn`t sow evil in Orthodoxy but on the contrary and so, some of Poles took the Orthodoxy under the Serbian influence. Of course, there were also examples how those Orthodox Serbs converting to Catholicism. People influenced each others.


i agree to it.

I read about it in relevant literature, I saw it here among Arabs who studied here, I saw it with Bosnian Muslims who founded the nation based on religious affiliation. It doesn't negate it but devalues it.

Islam has that practical side that history of Christianity didn't simple give, and that is that religion comes first. Some Catholics tend to display sometimes similar behavior in the US, I read somewhere that some catholics tend to vote rather for catholic candidate when his opponent is protestant ( research conducted by social psychologists in US), leaving presidential candidate's political attitudes on the second place. Some of the Catholics tend to shift sides if the Catholic is offered on the voting menu.

That doesn't apply for most of Catholics in US, and since I read that, that was 10 years ago, probably things changed, polarization left right seems to have sharpened.

Islamist theologists probably noticed that ethnicity played mostly a negative role in Christianity and diluted the the concept.

First of all most arabic states are artifical.What Syria,Iraq,Saudi Arabia?No Arab called himself Saudi or Iraqi before that.Muslims are largely a mass and they seldom fight against each other except for religious differences(Sunnis vs Shias etc) like Europe 5 centuries ago.